There is something solemn and awe-inspiring about famous people voicing their opinions in public. It is even more so when famous authorities in a given field voice their opinion in their book, with the bibliography section full of learned texts and a few intellectual heavyweights in the list of people thanked. I see something gravely dangerous, however, when an unquestionable scholar gives his/her private opinion on a subject only roughly related to his/her field of expertise. The danger, obviously, being wide acceptance of the scholar’s authority in the new subject based solely on his/her fame.

This, I truly believe, is the case with Hubert Lederer Dreyfus, professor of philosophy, particularly renowned for his insight into phenomenology, existentialism, Martin Heidegger’s understanding of “Being” as well as the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~hdreyfus/). And it’s this last bit that can make some believe incontrovertibly in prof. Dreyfus’s expertise in whatever subject connected with computers. The bigger, then, was my relief to read an academic article by Burbules, Professor of Educational Policy Studies, supporting my few concerns and adding many more of his own. From overgeneralizations, through ignorance of certain benefits of on-line interaction, through demonization of the internet as such, Dreyfus builds a very grim future for e-learning. What is perhaps the most striking to me as a teacher is prof. Dreyfus’s readiness to criticise matters of education while it is clear his views are based on elaborated comparisons and philosophical assumptions rather than classroom experience and knowledge of pedagogy. It is no wonder, than, that Dreyfus is reputed as a Luddite (http://www.beingintheworldmovie.com/ph-dreyfus.html), trying to oppose not only the inevitable but also the beneficial.

It is true that as a representative of a 1983 generation and a student of this course I am to a large extent biased by my conviction of the importance of omnipresent technology. And I acknowledge the fact that critique of the new is as needed as producing experts in the field. Still, I find more restrained commentaries such as Ray Land’s much more acceptable.

To finish my short disquisition I wish to reveal a comparison that comes to my mind when thinking of Dreyfus. Namely, I picture him as an experienced and mature sports journalist and a commentator. No matter how great his authority and expertise in the sport is, however, he still has very little chance of becoming a famous footballer or even a football team manager.

I appreciate Dreyfus’s book nonetheless, mainly for reassuring me why I want to be involved in e-learning at all.

Yes, it was the first time I heave ever used Twitter in a conversation. And as much as I appreciated the new experience, I disliked the fact that it is so difficult to actually follow the course of discussion.

Unlike chat, unlike the discussion forum even, this most asynchronous of all means of communication (well, I’m exaggerating, perhapsJ) is difficult for a partaker not only because it is so stretched in time, but also because it is linear in the way that each new post appears after a previous one (so unlike in a discussion forum where related posts can be grouped together), because a substantial number of various threads/topics may appear all in one discussion, and finally because each and every entry is subject to a character limit, making utterances abbreviated or cut into parts.

Contrary to what I had thought, Twitter threads proved to be very personal (words often spoken directly to someone specific rather than the whole group) and what fascinated me even more was an article by Jutko et.al. where a number of additional advantages of using Twitter were revealed (including but not limited to: high students’ engagement in the study process, extending classroom conversations, expressing personal feelings, revealing one’s shortcomings, mentioning extra-curricular content to find common interest, etc.).

I admit that to fully engage in a 3-day long discussion, a regular check of a few times a day would be necessary, probably.

 

Yes, I do believe Twitter has its place in the e-education process and I wish to continue my exploration of it starting from reading the bibliography positions from the two Twitter-related articles.

I might have made an impression since the last entry that I consider philosophers to be an annoying lot. Leaving that for a separate discussion I must admit they are definitely good at one thing, asking questions. The seemingly annoying (again) question “what do you mean by this?” is the key to the right understanding of things. Only this will allow us to form a specification of a given idea so that once it is clear it can be understood in the same way by everyone. Let’s take ‘freedom’, for instance. It can represent living without any constraints brought on citizens by governments (e.g. freedom to speak), or it can be a feeling of being able to act in possibly any way we wish to at any given time (I choose to switch on the heater now).

Defining ideas that are subject to constant change is even more difficult. That is precisely the case with virtual worlds. Should we maintain a basic and most generalised (ageless?) definition or should we amend and expand it on a regular basis?

Warburton (2009) rightly (or so I believe) opts for the former, repeating Schroeder’s (1996) definition of virtual world as one which: 1- is computer generated, 2- gives sense of being somewhere else than we really are, and 3- allows users to interact with each other or the environment. This definition is very straightforward.

I will refrain from analysing/polemicising with Warburton’s ideas of applying Second Life (SL) as means of learning/teaching as I have no sufficient knowledge or research history in this field. I do, however, have a few observations and comments after reading his article.

Warburton concludes that there are three major components that make up the Second Life experience. As we read we find out that each of the three components has certain limitations. The difficulties with the SL’s technical infrastructure – the first of the three components – are posed among others by the 3D visuals. These are running on the Lynden Lab servers, thus posing a substantial stress in the user’s bandwidth. In fact the big upside is that the downloadable interface (initially 24MB) is in fact minute in comparison to, for instance, most game installations. The stress placed on the user’s bandwidth should, in my opinion, be one of the determiners of SL’s minimum requirements. The simple fact of the matter is that SL cannot be used, understood and fully appreciated with slow internet connections and long lags caused thereby. Tightening the minimum internet speed would surely not diminish the number of SL users any more than a failed first impression could.

           I do not understand the author’s mention of “educators’ limited resources” as a barrier to SL use, since both the engine, use (to a large extent), and update downloads are all free of charge. The supposed ‘burden’ of installing new client releases has been a part of the software industry ever since and is more and more often overcome by automatic (often without user’s awareness) updates (e.g. such services are provided by Google’s Chrome).

           Speaking of current trends and developments in MUVEs (Multi User Virtual Environments) I admit to be particularly optimistic about the work on open standards and portability of identities. I would risk a claim that moving between various platforms/virtual worlds with only one avatar/virtual profile would allow these platforms to become more specialised and focused in their domains. Users as such would be able to experiment with different experiences without wasting their time on creating new profiles or learning how to move around in the new worlds. This could even lead to a fantastic surge in course taking by those who have already done it once (starting with an on-line Spanish course a student may want to try to learn some Hungarian next spring, or a 5-week course in cooking, followed by an improver's photography course, etc.).

Intro

There are certain domains in which virtual experience seems of little comparison to an in-world one (consider on-line confessions or learning how to skydive). And yet, some of our learned contemporaries never cease to prove us wrong.

Having heard of schools of languages offering classes in Second Life (such as the Lingualand school in Krakow, Poland), I decided to explore a less obvious example of SL use. Inspired by an idea in the Warburton’s text (the briefly mentioned PREVIEW project) and a number of other articles discussing e-learning in nursing and medicine (for a fuller list of my findings please check below) I decided to locate the Second Life PREVIEW project facility. And indeed, I had no problem finding it and was allowed to run a quick trial.

Please note that simultaneously a number of related projects are already available, including Second Life Medical and Consumer Health Libraries (Healthinfo Island—funded by a grant from the US National Library of Medicine) and VNEC (Virtual Neurological Education Centre—developed at the University of Plymouth, UK), as well as HABITAT, MOOSE and PLaNET projects.

 

 

About the project

The PREVIEW Project, provided by the Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences (a partnership between St George's, University of London and Kingston University) aims at training future paramedics in contextualised environments. The island is located here, and the project’s website with a more exhaustive description can be found here.

Provided with a nice welcome pack (including the ER outfit) the student is free to roam the training area between a number of locations (a street, an underground station, etc.) in which a variety of possible health-/life- threatening situations have occurred.

 

The PREVIEW experience

When a student approaches the emergency site a short text appears providing details of the circumstances (e.g. the cause of the accident, if the casualty is breathing or if there is any visible bleeding, etc.). What follows is a series of possible actions to be taken by a paramedic, the choice of which is briefly followed by another set of changing circumstances or new options to choose from. The accident site is often accompanied by a media-tutorial screen. Fret not, dear disciple, for there is no time limit to take appropriate action nor patients’ screams to be heard. What there is, however, is a fantastic opportunity to visualise the emergency situations in life-like contexts and practise various life-saving strategies individually or in a group.

 

More in PREVIEW

Apart from the Second Life interface, the project is supported by the blog, a dedicated Youtube channel, student experience surveys, related academic journals and links to useful/related websites.

 

Advantages

My short list of advantages of learning a medical profession in SL will inevitably map those of Warburton’s, with visualisation and contextualisation in the lead. With a number of various pre-loaded actions that a paramedic may take, experimenting and making errors poses no real threat. I can imagine that the SL training may greatly help in automating responses in at least the most common of circumstances. Through immersion and multiple repetitions a paramedic novice may practise ad nauseam, with the feeling of actually performing treatment.

 

Disadvantages

To the catalogue of potential drawbacks listed, unerringly, by Warburton (e.g. the Identity problem), I would like to add some specific dangers I perceive in learning paramedics online. Namely, the already mentioned comfort of no time limit to perform an action, or the potentially misleading selection of choices, while in real life these may be strictly limited by the very individual circumstances. I dread to think what possible harm could be done by sticking to the routine and ignoring other pieces of information that had previously been ignored by the virtual world builders.

 

Related resources

• Kamel Boulos, M. N. et al. (2007). Second Life: an overview of the potential of 3-D virtual worlds in medical and health education. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 24, 233–245. (also available from Google Scholar)

 

• Skiba, D. J. (2007). Nursing Education 2.0: Second Life. Nursing Education Perspectives, 28, 3, 156-157. (also available from Google Scholar)

 

• McCallum, J., et al. (2010). Exploring nursing students' decision-making skills whilst in a Second Life clinical simulation laboratory. Nurse Education Today, doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2010.03.010 (also available from ScienceDirect.com)

 

• Honey, M., et al. (2011). Teaching With Second Life: Hemorrhage Management as an Example of a Process for Developing Simulations for Multiuser Virtual Environments. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, Vol(X), 000-000. doi: 10.1016/j.ecsn. (also available from ScienceDirect.com)